BOLTING BEES
The mysterious disappearances of the Honeybees are putting America’ s Agriculture at stake. Will this nationwide evacuation be stopped? By: Emily Tran
The sun shines brightly in midday, and a busy,
buzzing beehive works restlessly at its production of honey. A group of adult honey bees set out to forage. The sunsets and the bees have not come back yet. Night falls and the bees are gone for sure. As days pass by more and more honey bees set out to forage but never come back. Weeks pass by and only the queen is left at the hive with thousands of brood to take care of. Overwhelmed, the Queen takes one last look at the lonely hive, still filled with honey, and flies off.
These kind of situations are not uncommon in the U. S. In fact, it is happening right now, at a rate which threatens the crop production of America.
What’ s buzzing All over the United States, honey bees are abandoning their hives in great numbers,
Honey Bee History
Scientists try to find ways to keep bees at a population to last forever
This isn’ t the only time honey bees have died off in great numbers. There were great die-offs as early as 950 A. D in Ireland. It was called,“ The great Morality of Bees”. It repeated in Ireland in 992 and 1443. And then, the Great Die-Off crossed the pond in 1903 when 2,000 bee colonies died in the Cache Valley, Utah. Three years after honey bee colonies almost went extinct in the Great Die-off in the Isle of Wight, UK. And in 1996 and 2006 in Pennsylvania when bee keepers were reporting notable bee population decreases. These die-offs are still happening today, but under the new name of Colony Collapse Disorder.